Sheet materials, such as sheet papers, sheet metals, metal foils, polymeric sheets, polymeric films, sheet glass, sheet composites, multi-layered composite web, laminated web, and their associated forms with layers of organic or inorganic coatings, are often formed in long, wide sheets and then spooled into large rolls. These large, wide rolls must then be converted into predetermined sizes by slitting, chopping, and/or perforating. For most converting operations, as are also referred to as cutting operations, it is important that the cutting be performed without substantial cutting defects such as dust debris, hair debris, and delamination which might lead to a decrease in the value of the final products. To ensure high cut quality, it is often necessary to carefully design and select cutting tools based on the properties and structure of sheet material being cut. Furthermore, because tool wear often leads to poor cut quality, as well as extra costs resulting from machine down time and resharpening of the cutting tool, it is also important that the design and selection of cutting tools will ensure a long tool life.
Although various cutting devices employed in the converting of sheet materials may look very different from a macroscopic machine point of view, if examined at close proximity of the interaction of the cutters and sheet material, all cutting devices would look essentially the same as shown in FIG. 1 which presents a partial, sectional view of typical prior art knife cutting edge portions with sheet material therebetween. The major difference between various prior art cutting devices 10 (see FIG. 1), when examined in the scale of sheet material thickness, would be in the rake angles 12 and 14; relief angles 16 and 18; sharpness of edges 20, 22; clearance 24; material from which cutters 26, 28 are fabricated, and surface finish of cutters 26, 28. A multi-layered sheet material 30 is shown between cutters 26, 28. As depicted, multi-layered sheet material includes a support or base web 31, with an upper layer or coating 32 and a lower layer or coating 34. There is a planar interface 36 between upper layer or coating 32 and support or base web 31. There is a planar interface 38 between lower layer or coating 32 and support or base web 31.
Fundamentally, the cutting process is a fracture process. One needs to initiate and propagate a crack through the thickness of the sheet material. A clean cut usually requires good control of how the crack initiates and propagates throughout the cutting process. If the crack propagation is not well controlled, defects such as skiving, chipping, burr, dust, hair, cracking, and delamination can be generated from the adverse fracture behavior. The control for the cutting crack is especially important with the increasing use of layered sheet materials in photographic, optical, electronic, metal, and medical industries. With the multiple interfaces between sheets and/or layers in a multi-layered sheet material, a poorly controlled cutting crack tends to branch into one of the interfaces 36, 38 and create hair-like debris.
High rake cutters and low rake cutters are known in the prior art. From the mechanics viewpoint, the tip of the high rake cutter provides a high stress concentration in a very small region, which usually produces desired fracture without inducing undesired high stress in the surrounding material. Therefore, it tends to induce less defects. However, the tip of the high rake cutter itself is also subjected to a very high stress throughout the cutting process, which according to Archard's wear equation (Friction, Wear, Lubrication, A Text Book in Tribology, K. C. Ludema, CRC Press, Inc., 1996) has the disadvantage of a higher wear rate and a shorter tool life. The rake angle in the high rake cutter of prior arts typically is in the range of 45 to 70 degrees.
In contrast to the high-rake-angle cutter, a low rake angle cutter tends to spread the cutting pressure over a larger contact area on the sheet material and the cutter. Compared to the high rake cutting, because a larger area of the cut material is subjected to high stresses, more cutting defects such as debris and dust can be generated. However, because stress concentration at the cutter tip is smaller compared to the high rake cutter and once the crack begins to propagate, the cutter tip often is disengaged from contacting the sheet material, the tool life for low rake cutters tends to be longer. The rake angle in the high rake cutter of prior arts typically is in the range of 0 to 20 degrees.
Many cutters over the years have been devised to achieve high cut quality of sheet materials through the manipulation of the cutter geometries. U.S. Pat. No. 5,423,239 to Sakai and Takano discusses slitting a continuous running magnetic tape with a gap between blade edges of zero rake angle to prevent cutting defects. U.S. Pat. No. 5,974,922 to Camp et al. discusses the use of knives with rake angles between 50 and 70 degrees for color paper to achieve low cutting debris. U.S. Pat. No. 5,274,319 to Frye and Fitzpatrick discusses a combination of rake angles and penetration to slit high bulk traveling paper web with good slit quality. U.S. Pat. No. 5,794,500 to Long and White discusses an apparatus and method of slitting thin webs involving high rake knives similar to razor blades. U.S. Pat. No. 5,423,240 to Detorre discusses a side-crowned carbide cutting blades and devices for cutting tire cord fabric. None of these prior art cutters, however, are effective in generating a well-controlled cutting crack in sheet materials while achieving both high tool life and high cut quality.